Virtual Tour - McMurdo Station, Antarctica

McMurdo Station is Antarctica's largest community. It is built
on the bare volcanic rock of Hut Point Peninsula on Ross Island,
the farthest south solid ground that is accessible by ship.
Established in 1956, it has grown from an outpost of a few
buildings to a complex logistics staging facility of more than 100
structures including a harbor, an outlying airport (Williams
Field) with landing strips on sea ice and shelf ice, and a
helicopter pad. There are above-ground water, sewer, telephone,
and power lines linking buildings.

From 1955 until 1999, the Navy [Antarctic Development Squadron Six (VXE-6)]
flew various aircraft in support of the U.S. Antarctic Program, including
LC-130 aircraft. In 1998 at the Navy's request, the Air Force/Air National
Guard took-over command of the DoD support to the USAP (Operation Deep
Freeze) from the Navy. VXE-6 continued to augment the Air National Guard
with LC-130 flights until it was disestablished in March 1999. The
New York
Air National Guard's 109th Airlift Wing, which had augmented VXE-6 since
1988, became the sole USAP provider of LC-130 aircraft support, beginning
with the 1999/2000 field season.
Most of the pictures you
see on the Virtual Tour date from before 1998, so most of the
aircraft pictured are Navy; for more recent photos, see
our page on the NYANG.

Sea ice from the air as you're getting closer to Antarctica.
Photo: CARA/R. Landsberg

From Williams Field and the ice runways, flights not only span
the continent, but maintain McMurdo's contact with
New Zealand and
the United States. Williams Field is 16 km from McMurdo on the
Ross Ice Shelf. Ski-equipped planes can land there; wheeled
airplanes use a harder, smoother runway on sea ice in October,
November and into December, when the sea ice usually begins to
break up and become unusable. A permanent, hard-ice runway for
wheeled planes -- the Pegasus site on the Ross Ice Shelf -- was
completed in 1992 and can be used in all but the warmest
months.

McMurdo Station resembles an urban center in its population
diversity and hectic pace. Like major cities, McMurdo serves as an
international center where people of different backgrounds meet
and exchange ideas. Winter population is about 250 persons; summer
population can exceed 1100. The winterers are isolated from about
March 1to about October 1. Air transportation is frequent between
October and February.

DASI telescope arrives at McMurdo, October 1999
DASI is a new CARA telescope that studies the
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. It will be installed this
coming season in the Dark
Sector at the South Pole.
These pictures from its arrival at McMurdo in October 1999
involve the NY Air National Guard planes.

All DASI arrival pictures courtesy L. DeGalan, ASA.

NSF Headquarters.
The Chalet was erected during the 1969-1970 summer. It is the
United States Antarctic Program (USAP) administration and
operations center and houses the offices of the senior U.S.
representative in Antarctica, the
National Science Foundation
(NSF) representative, and senior management of the support
contractor, Raytheon Polar
Services Company. The Chalet has a
conference area and a meeting room for presentations and official
social gatherings. The Chalet also has a single-sideband radio and
satellite communication facilities for contact with the South Pole
Station and field parties. In the foreground of this picture, you
can see the Richard E. Byrd memorial.

Albert P. Crary Science and Engineering Center
(CSEC)
The new science facility, the Albert P. Crary Science and
Engineering Center (CSEC), dedicated on 5 November 1991, began
full operation during the 1994-95 season. The Crary Laboratory
supports biological, earth science, atmospheric sciences, and a
new aquarium, all under one roof. The Crary facility was named for
the geophysicist and geologist Albert P. Crary (1911-1987), the
first person to set foot on both the North and South Poles.

Other science facilities at McMurdo include diving equipment
and recompression chambers for diving accident victims, cosmic ray
monitors, and stations to study magnetospheric and ionospheric
phenomena.

Dormitories and Observation Hill.
Housing facilities in McMurdo have improved greatly in recent
years. These are some of the dorms provided for most of the
civilians traveling through McMurdo in the summer. Only a few of
the dorms remain open for the winter. Observation Hill is a neat
place to hike and get a look out over the city.

Views of the mountains seen on a walk from McMurdo.
Photo: CARA/R. Landsberg

Hut Point, where Scott's hut is located.

The British explorer Robert Falcon Scott journeyed to the Pole
in the early 1900s -- Scott established a base here on what is now
McMurdo. (Scott picked it for the good reasons stated above: it's
the farthest south solid ground that is accessible by ship.) Scott
and his party left a hut here stocked with goods in 1904. The
cold, dry air of the Antarctic tundra helps in preserving the hut
and its supplies, but New Zealand maintains the site today.

A view outside Scott's Hut.

The pantry inside Scott's Hut -- note that these are the original
stores left in 1904.

The lab area inside Scott's Hut.
Photo courtesy Robert Schwarz

The bunks once occupied by Day (lower) and Nelson in 1911. Day's bunk
was used by Dick Richards during occupation of the hut by the Ross Sea Shore Party.
Photo courtesy Robert Schwarz

Because McMurdo is an unusual environment,
there are somewhat strange-looking vehicles here.
Photo: CARA/R. Landsberg

As mentioned above, McMurdo is a busy place in the summer, with
all sorts of flights coming and going to various research teams.
This helicopter is the only way to get to the Dry Valleys inland.
Note the skis on the bottom.

Air and sea transportation at McMurdo.

Third photo courtesy NYANGIcebreaker -- USCG Polar
Star.
This is a Polar-class ship, one of two polar icebreakers in the
American Coast Guard fleet. The
Polar
Star and her sister ship, the
Polar Sea, are
both 122 meters long and displace 13,400
metric tons. There are 154 crew members per ship, and each can
accommodate up to 20 scientists. (One of the two ships is deployed
to each pole, so only one is in Antarctica each year.)

These ships have many unique features that make them
appropriate vessels for these climates. Conventional navigation is
difficult in extreme northern and southern latitudes, so these
ships have sophisticated electronic navigation equipment on board.
These ships also have sufficient hull strength to absorb
high-powered rams into the ice. The portion of the hull designed
to ram the ice is 4.5 cm (1.75 inches) thick in the bow and stern
sections and 3.175 cm (1.25 in) amidships, built of steel that has
special low-temperature strength. The hull shape is designed to
maximize icebreaking by efficiently combining the forces of the
ship's forward motion, the downward pull of gravity on the bow,
and the upward push of the inherent buoyancy of the stern. The
curved bow allows the ship to ride up on top of the ice, then the
bow is levered through the ice like a giant sledgehammer. The
Polar Star is able to ram her way though ice up to 6.4
meters (21 feet) thick and steam continuously through 1.8 meters
(6 feet) of ice at 3 knots (5.6 km/hour)! There are also three
pairs of connected tanks located on opposite sides of the ship.
Pumps transfer a tank's contents (133 kiloliters, 35,000 gallons)
to an opposing tank in 50 seconds and generate 64,800
kilowatt-seconds (24,000 foot-tons) of torque on the ship.
Operations in the remote, hazardous, and unforgiving polar regions
make it necessary for the crew to be highly self-sufficient. Crew
members have extensive training in a variety of special
skills.

We're on our way!
This is looking south over McMurdo Sound, toward the Pole.

Various views of ice and the Trans-Antarctic Mountains from the plane:Photos: CARA/R. Landsberg